Wine from palomino grapes turns to vinegar on its own in old American oak casks.
Bota Vieja is a bodega from 1924 in the upper town of Sanlúcar. It makes wine and it makes vinegar, and the vinegar was always the poor relation. Macarena Rendón started there as an intern in 2011 and today she is the cellar master.
When the old cellar master, Paco, retired, nobody wanted the vinegar casks. They took up room and gave little back. Macarena asked if she could keep them. They said yes because nobody else wanted them.
Now the vinegar sells more abroad than the wine does. Macarena is thirty-eight and says that in Jerez you have to wait a long time for everything. This vinegar has waited two years in the cask before reaching your salad.
